Jack B. Quick is a space sheriff, whose job on Earth, is to eliminate that pesky sucker of goats, the legendary Chupacabra. He’ll have his Jack hands full; this Chupacabra is six-feet tall, looks like a cross between a seafood platter entree and Japanese pro wrestler, and is actually the presumably housebroken pet of Lord Invader.

Sent by the Queen Bee and King Allmedia (are you groaning out loud yet?), Jack has to be Quick around the Chupacabra in order to not get his goat blood sucked or admonished by the Queen, whose shirt stuffers are metaphorically the size of orbiting planets.

Jack chases Chupacabra around in his spacecraft, an early model Plymouth. To assist in his quest, he packs a shotgun (easily purchased throughout the galaxy). He also has to slap Lord Invader upside the head for letting his pet go outside his interstellar front yard. And if all of this doesn’t leave you gasping for logic, rocket ranger Dan Danger (now would be another good time to groan audibly) shows up to verbally walk us through this land mine-ridden story line. If Jack B. Quick succeeds, he’ll be knighted. If not, food stamps.

Working on a budget so low, the actors themselves paid for it (in more ways than one). Guns of El Chupacabra (1997) is a sci-fi comedy with a half-decent monster costume, wincing dialogue/references, and Julie Strain, who I would pay to just see stand there for 90 or so minutes.

The only thing unbelievable about Varan, The Unbelievable (also known as Giant Monster Varan, 1958) hand me down/cash-in Godzilla (1954) knock-off is that the movie ever got made.

Obachi (Varan’s Japanese and driver license name) lives in Kitakami, a super deep lake feared by the loco/local natives. This is where I get so confused I run into parked cars: the native citizens call their lake monster/mountain god Jigoku-no-Sanjin (like anyone can say that). Or Varan for short. The closest I can figure out is that because its name is so hard to pronounce, they changed it to Obachi for the American release. Man, I hope to Jigoku-no-Sanjin I’m right.

And because the mountain god who oddly lives in a lake instead of, oh, I don’t know, a MOUNTAIN, the military bombs the stink out of it, thereby ruining the giant monster’s bathroom. This annoys the mountain out of the lumbering (and clearly on DRUGS) Varan, who gets his by tripping into buildings and wrecking really nice landscape. (His roar sounds like he needs some Tums™.)

The American version of this “film” cut out the scenes of Varan in flight. (He looks like a prehistoric flying squirrel and you can see his nuts. Besides caveman tar tar, that’s what prehistoric flying squirrels eat. Don’t give me that look.) And all the stock war footage spliced around V makes this look like a 1950 venereal disease-gone-untreated health film. (Now there’s some real horror.)

Note to director: Good news – I wrote a three-page script for a sequel (Varan, The Slightly Believable), which is two more than you did. Bad news: You’re not directing it.